Google tax deal goes up for vote

But Web company won’t announce before January whether it will build 200-employee site

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Richland County Council will vote tonight on property tax breaks for a potential 200-job, $600 million Google data center near Blythewood, but the Silicon Valley company won’t announce before January whether it will build one.

The vote comes three months after Google paid $13.1 million for a 466-acre site along I-77. Local officials have dreamed the 80-mile stretch of highway connecting Columbia to Charlotte would become a magnet for high-paying jobs since it opened 26 years ago today.

Google's Data Center Strategy Revealed . . . At The Rotary Club

For months, I've been trying to get Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to discuss its data center strategy. My approach was flawed. I could have gotten more information at a Rotary Club luncheon this week in Hickory, N.C.

Until recently, Google didn't talk to anyone about the data centers it's building around the world at a cost of about $600 million each, but company officials realized they needed to open up as the locals started asking questions about the tall fences, bulldozers, and dust being kicked up in their communities. So Google now talks strategy with the people directly affected.

As reported by John Dayberry in the Hickory Record, the manager of Google's under-construction data center in Lenoir, N.C., met yesterday with folks at the Hickory Rotary Club. Tom Jacobik told the group of about 100 that Google's data center there could be operational before the year's end or early in 2008. Among the tidbits gleaned: Google plans to employ approximately 200 people at the facility. (That seems to be the rule of thumb for new Google data centers.) Google's getting involved in IT skills education and retraining at local colleges. And Jacobik, one-time director of tactical operations for Oracle, is helping supervise construction of another Google data center in Charleston, S.C.

Last week, Google officials were in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they addressed the Chamber of Commerce's quarterly meeting. Ken Patchett (he manages Google's data center in The Dalles, Ore.) gave a status report on Google's Council Bluffs facility, answered some questions, and dodged others. As reported by the Des Moines Register, Patchett also had breakfast at Duncan's Café on Main Street. (Check out the picture; I'll take two eggs scrambled, toast, black coffee.)